Wednesday, August 27, 2014

What Readers Don't Want

Paula looks at reasons given by readers for not liking a
book.

We often read or hear about what readers want in a romance
novel – strong characters, good plot etc. Equally important, it seems, are the
things they don’t want. Some time ago, I compile a list (from various sources) of
‘not wanted’ features in novels. Here is my ‘top ten’ of dislikes (with some of
my original list combined at times) – in no particular order:

1. Too many characters introduced too quickly in the story
(especially at the beginning

I agree, Chrys! Read a story recently where 8 characters were introduced on the first page i.e. 4 couples, also 3 of them had names that could have been male or female - Sam, Pat, and Bernie. Very confusing!

I don't mention food a lot in mine, apart from brief references, but I think the main 'complaint' was about too much detail about cooking. I once read a novel where about 4 pages could have been sub-titled 'How to Cook your Thanksgiving Meal'!

You made good points, Debra made a good point...Jennifer, too much food? I need to read your stories!Too much jargon for whatever job the main characters have drives me nuts, as does foreign phrases...even if they are common, they are pretentious. If it is sci-fi or fantasy, too-odd names of people and places is distracting and makes it hard to remember to whom and where the writer is making reference.I better quit now!